March 25, 2013

Hola Familia y Amigos,

First things first....... HAPPY BIRTHDAY LURP NATION!!!! Happy birthday my little bro. I hope you have a great day today. I also hope that maybe turning 16 will help you gain a couple more pounds haha. Hey, I might have lost a lot of weight but you still won´t catch up to me, I know it. I won´t lie though you do look a lot older now than when I left on the mission, I will give you that. I will always be able to beat you up though haha. I love you bro! I can´t believe you are getting so old. Don´t crash the truck, treat him good!!! Tell coach Tanner hi for me while you are driving with him. I am glad to hear about all the great things that are going on there at home. I love to hear about all the new missionaries and all the old ones coming home. Tell Kohler that he is awesome and that I love him. He is going to love the Peru MTC. It might be a little hard at first, but just love it!!!

I am so glad to hear that Hna(Sister) Erickson wrote you. They are so awesome. I sure do love them and thank them for their great service. They add a needed maturity to the work there in Panguipulli. I am glad that she contacted you. Make sure you tell them that I am so grateful for them. I am so glad that I am able to meet so many amazing people here in the best mission in the world!

All I have to say is that this week might have been one of the most amazing of my mission. The Lord is so loving and merciful that He is willing to pour out so many blessings upon two meazly servants like Elder Walker and Me. He sure did bless us this week, and I know that all the great things that happened this week were thanks to Him and the guidance that He gives is through His holy spirit. I don´t even know where to start. I sure hope that I can express myself as I try to explain all the amazing things that happened this week. I have a lot of stuff in my head because we just had to put all the numbers of the whole zone in the computer and send it to Osorno. I hope I can remember the most important things to tell you.

Mom, yes you will send all things to the same address. We live in an apartment that looks kinda sketchy on the outside, but it is awesome on the inside. Under us lives a member and yesterday as we got home on the door there was a note that said "pass by my house hna Eva". Turns out she had made us a huge amount of cookies, she is so sweet. It was a little tender mercy to finish one miraculous week. Ok, so Wednesday we had a Zone training where we got our zone together and talked about a few things that we are going to start doing in our zone. The training was amazing and I think I might have learned more than our zone did. A lot of the elders came up after and told us that it was one of the best that they had had in all their missions. Elder Walker and I could just say it wasn´t us, it was the Spirit, He was there and He taught each one of us the things that we needed to learn. We realized that because afterwards elders explained what they learned and each was different because the Spirit was there teaching us all what we needed to do to be better missionaries. It was amazing. We made a goal with the zone that every sector was going to invite at least 2 people to be baptized before Sunday, and the zone blew that goal out of the water with an average of 3 invitations in every sector. It was awesome. In our sector we were inviting everyone and it was amazing the blessings we saw the Lord pour out on us as we tried our best to magnify our calling by inviting all to follow Christ by being baptized. Wednesday the same day we had already invited 2 people to be baptized. We were walking and we passed a guy working on his car. We knocked a door further down the street and then we decided to go back and talk to the guy with his car. We did so, and the young 28 year old man named Andres asked us what is your message. We explained a bit of the restoration and he said that he has been looking for the truth forever and could not find it. We taught him the Restoration and his face lit up with the Spirit right there in front of his car. Right after meeting him he accepted to be baptized on the 28th of April. It was a blessing from God.

One of the most amazing miracles that happened this week was on Saturday. Everything we had planned pretty much failed all day. We had organized an open house in the church and we had invited all to come. Sadly, not one person showed up. After cleaning the church up, we headed out at about 7:30 to go find someone to teach. We strived our very hardest even though all had fallen and the day was pretty dreary and hard to be animated and have faith that if we did all we could that the Lord would provide. Shortly after, He truly provided in an amazing way. All of the sudden, we walked past a house and Elder Walker stopped and felt that we should knock it. It was the only one we had attempted to knock on the whole street. A man came out and we began to talk. He explained that he had talked with missionaries before and that he felt like he was ok where he was. We continued to express out great love for our message and the blessings he could receive from it. The Spirit touched him and he actually let us in. We had a powerful lesson with him and his daughter. We invited him to follow Jesus Christ and be baptized when the Lord told him he should and he said yes. As we were finishing, his wife and son walked in the door and we finished expressing how much our message would bless them. We finished with a kneeling prayer and the Spirit was felt strongly. We are so excited to go back tomorrow and share more with them.

All in all, this week was so amazing. I cannot believe what the Lord does for us missionaries out here. As Ammon says in Alma 26:16, I cannot say even a small part of what I feel. I love this work with all my heart. There is nothing else better. It has blessed my life amazingly. I am so grateful for the Lord and his many tender mercies. I love you all so much. thanks for all your support.